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What Are My Chances Of Multiple Miscarriages?

published on June 19, 2013

About the Blog

WhatToExpect.com supports Word of Mom as a place to share stories and highlight the many perspectives and experiences of pregnancy and parenting. However, the opinions expressed in this section are those of individual writers and do not reflect the views of Heidi Murkoff of the What to Expect brand.

Having already had one miscarriage, I think it is a natural tendency to wonder if my chance of multiple miscarriages goes up. This is a constant worry of mine and is one of the reasons I have vowed to never tell anyone (other than WTE of course) that I was pregnant until after I was twelve weeks.

Yes I'm still flipping through my What To Expect Before You're Expecting book and was drawn to the section that discusses the odds of having multiple miscarriages. I was pleasantly surprised with the information I found.

Heidi writes, "Having one miscarriage does not increase your risk of having another-- and, in fact, you have the same excellent chances as someone who's trying for the first time that your next pregnancy will bestow on you the baby you've been hoping for."

This is great news! She also gives the following percentages for another miscarriage:

If first pregnancy ended in miscarriage -- 15%

2 Miscarriages -- 25%

3 Miscarriages -- 35%

Of course this isn't true with everyone but if gives reason to hope.

I was so excited to read this that I thought I would pull out my other book, "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" by Toni Weschler and see if there was any additional information on multiple miscarriages.

I must say, my hopes were dashed just a little. Toni writes that, "Miscarriages occur at a surprisingly high rate of about one in three pregnancies."

Having had time to mull this thought over I have decided to push it out of my mind. I don't know it this rate is based on known miscarriages of if this includes those pregnancies that end before a missed period. I'm hoping for the latter.

Thus, I will still take comfort in Heidi's percentages that next time I get pregnant; I will have an 85% chance that everything will be fine and I will carry the baby to term. It won't help me any if I keep thinking that every period is another miscarriage.

What are your thoughts? How many people who have had one miscarriage did indeed have another? Do you know why you had multiple miscarriages?